Death By Fire Poem by Robert Charles Howard

Seth awoke in a terror sweat
engulfed by flames
licking at his bed.
His cries of final anguish
piercing the midnight silence.

His shaking three year old frame,
would not, could not
assimilate the coos and solace
from deluded parents -
speaking rubbish of nightmares
while the whole universe
blazed with terminal fire.

A yard or so across the room,
illumined by a night light's slender beams,
a child's Hot Wheel raceway,
decaled with crimson - yellow flames
benignly rested on a table.

May, 2008